July 27, 2009

One Local Summer: Week 8

Mid summer has hit this northern outpost of the South. My CSA share contained tomatoes, corn, and okra as well as a baby watermelon. Oh, and eggs, yes more eggs. The cooler weather we have been having means the chickens are still laying and I am running out of room for eggs in my fridge. My daily breakfast of cottage cheese omelet muffins (I will have to share that recipe at some point) only uses about four eggs a week and if I have a few days of cereal or go on vacation for a week or two...well lets just say that there is more than a few dozen eggs in the fridge. I think I need to make a concerted effort to eat more eggs. So far I had planned to make some cherry amaretto cookies and had the dried sour cherries soaking in the Amaretto (yeah, I know it only uses one egg but boy are they good), and then I saw Colleen's post about crepes at the farmers' market and decided that crepes would be on the menu once again here at Chez 40shades as they hadn't made an appearance since week 2 . While I have run out of all purpose flour from Byrd Mill, I still have plenty of buckwheat flour in addition to whole wheat flour which should be fine for a savory crepe.

I turned to Mark Bittman for inspiration for the recipes. The crepe filling is a rif on his Okra, Corn and Tomato Stew from How to Cook Everything (a much appreciated gift from my mother many years ago) and the watermelon salad was inspired by some of the ideas in this article as well as Collen's Watermelon gazpacho. I hadn't thought to use watermelon in a more savory salad. And since the oven was going on for the cookies, I decided to cook up the sweet potato I discovered while getting the potatoes for Potato, cabbage and feta salad that I will take to our "backyard barbeque" supper club this month.

Buckwheat Crepes

3 eggs

3/4 cup(s) buckwheat flour

1 cup(s) fat-free skim milk

1/4 cup(s) whole wheat flour

1/4 tsp table salt

2 garlic scapes

2 tbsp parsley

Instructions

Blend eggs with a whisk, add remaining ingredients and whisk quickly until lumps are
gone. Cook in frying pan sprayed with oil (but not too much) over medium heat. Takes about
2-3 minutes per side, depending on the size of your pan.

Heat a large skillet over medium heat, add oil and once it is heated add onions and peppers. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and cook for 10 minutes or until onion turns translucent. Add the tomatoes, okra and chili powder, cover and cook over low for an additional 10 minutes. Uncover and cook off some of the liquid, add the corn and cook until heated through. Garnish with parsley and serve as is or as filling inside a crepe.